Apple has officially opened its "Stanford 2" retail location, an event that drew crowds of both customers and lookers-on.

The Northern California Apple Store has been undergoing a substantial overhaul in order to install a "glass box and floating roof" design, making it one of three stores to feature such a design. Now, AppleInsider reader Jeffrey has supplied images of the grand opening event, which happened on Saturday.

The store was first revealed in March of 2012, with its design giving window shoppers a 180-degree view of the interior. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, its aesthetic is a continuation of an architectural language that has come to typify many of Apple's most recently-opened retail locations.

Another two retail outlets will soon open with designs similar to the Stanford 2 location. One will be located in downtown Portland, while the other will be in France.

Just a touch early though. People might be going in buying iPhone 5 models and they'll bring out the 5S in just a couple of days. They can return them up to 30 days though so a few people there might be returning to the store soon.

Are all those pics from the same store? I don't understand why the ones from the outside show an opaque roof and the one on the inside shows a glass roof. Are there two (huge) rooms?

Edit. Ah, I followed the link to the additional pictures. There are two rooms. The outer one has glass walls but a normal roof and the back room has glass ceiling and non-glass walls. I didn't get that when we saw the pictures of the other store like this (in France?).

It's weird that there are so many jackasses who claim Apple is doomed. Apple continues to enlarge stores and open new ones and there are certainly lots of people showing up. Does that really indicate that Apple is going out of business? Apple hasn't been laying-off anyone and in fact, has been increasing the number of employees in the company. All that alone shows that Apple is not being killed off by the proliferation Android devices. And all this has been going in a period where Apple basically hasn't even released any new products for nearly a full year. Yet Wall Street continues to base Apple's financial health on falling global mobile market share which shows market share is a very poor indicator of a company's health, at least in Apple's case.

Apple currently does not look like a company without a future. Why the stock value has deviated so far opposite from the health of the overall company makes no sense whatsoever. With China Mobile and DoCoMo lined up as major carriers and iTunes Radio coming online it appears Apple will certainly double-down in smart-device sales. If that doesn't move Apple's share price upward, then nothing will. Will Apple ever be able to change the viewpoint that Apple is doomed just because Steve Jobs is dead?

What's strange is they have another fairly large store not too far away from the Palo Alto store, which is also fairly large. I know Apple has always done well in Silicon Valley, but I'm surprised they have such a big store in Stanford Shopping Center.

It's weird that there are so many jackasses who claim Apple is doomed. Apple continues to enlarge stores and open new ones and there are certainly lots of people showing up. Does that really indicate that Apple is going out of business? Apple hasn't been laying-off anyone and in fact, has been increasing the number of employees in the company. All that alone shows that Apple is not being killed off by the proliferation Android devices. And all this has been going in a period where Apple basically hasn't even released any new products for nearly a full year. Yet Wall Street continues to base Apple's financial health on falling global mobile market share which shows market share is a very poor indicator of a company's health, at least in Apple's case.

Apple currently does not look like a company without a future. Why the stock value has deviated so far opposite from the health of the overall company makes no sense whatsoever. With China Mobile and DoCoMo lined up as major carriers and iTunes Radio coming online it appears Apple will certainly double-down in smart-device sales. If that doesn't move Apple's share price upward, then nothing will. Will Apple ever be able to change the viewpoint that Apple is doomed just because Steve Jobs is dead?

It's only "weird" when you try to reconcile the facts of what you SEE with your own eyes out in the world with the "facts" of what you HEAR in the media and whatever happens on Wall Street.

The media have their respective agenda based on their respective vested interests as well as their real or imagined "power" over the weak minds of the general populace who "believe" in whatever the media say or with whatever the media presents to them. This could very well include even some of the "Apple haters" who pop up anonymously and frequently in comment threads. I suspect that some of them are even paid to spew their inciteful lies and propaganda.

A large part of Wall Street is, of course, a legalized gambling operation whose performance has little correspondence with stock-issuing corporations' actual performance. To me, though I sometimes pine over lost opportunities of the past to invest in Apple, I then realize far more often that such opportunities bear odds more akin to winning the lottery.

So the lesson here, chil'uns, is to count your blessings in all the Apple products that you own that you love because they work well for you. And be happy that there are so many others of you who share your joy and who keep buying them in droves.

T-shirts: the first 1000 visitors get a free Apple t-shirt. I recently got one at the opening of the 3rd Apple Store in Rome, Italy, in the Euroma2 mall.

But what about the concert tickets and other valuable prizes that MS and Sammy offer to draw a crowd to their store openings? Seems like these Apple customers are easily satisfied if all they need is a lousy tee shirt. ;)

You mean it's not curved? That other photo from the article is so visually misleading.

Indeed, the "box" design didn't really sink in until I read your comment. Reading this article I was immediately of the notion that the new store was pleasantly curvaceous. That picture is worth a thousand misleading words.

It has been pointed out many times that Apple's store sales contribute more to the company bottom line than any other retailer in any other line of business. I believe their return on this investment has been in positive territory for quite some time.

Stanford Shopping Center is a different milieu than University Avenue, where the Palo Alto store is located. The new store is situated right next to Neiman Marcus, which should tell you something about the clientele that frequent the shopping center. Though, I'll wager Apple's placement had more to do with the available space for expansion than placement next to N-M.

A Microsoft store had already opened across from the old Apple Store some years ago, when MS was in the habit of opening in close proximity to Apple locations. It had twice the floor space of Apple's location at the time.